Lisa Marie’s Week In Television: 6/21/26 — 6/27/28

Posted on June 27, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Bands of Enchantment (PBS)

On Friday night, I watched a performance by the band Pacifica. They were okay. I prefer louder music.

Bring Me The Beauties: The Model Cult (HBOMax)

I watched this 3-part docuseries on Monday. It was yet another cult documentary. This time, only good-looking people could join the cult. That actually made sense to me. If you’re a cult leader, why would you want to be surrounded by ugly people?

Degrassi: The Next Generation (Tubi)

My review of this week’s episode will drop tomorrow.

Election Coverage

I watched this latest primary results on Tuesday. Ugh, the DSA in New York. Never has a group of activist been both so charmless and so successful at the same time. A lot of people are panicking about that but, honestly, if the DSA was going to win anywhere, it was going to be in New York. I imagine they’ll do well in Denver next week as well. DSA appeals to gentrifiers. (I also remember that the DSA insurgency was declared dead after the primaries in Illinois so perhaps we should be careful about reading too much into any one night.) It seems like after every “wave election,” there’s a few new congresspeople (and even senators) who end up self-destructing during their first or second term, people like Katie Hill, George Santos, Madison Cawthorn, Cori Bush, and Jamaal Bowman. This year, I’m putting my money on Dairaliza Avila Chevalier and, if he wins, Graham Platner as being the most likely to fall apart as soon as they arrive in Washington.

Homicide: Life On The Street (Peacock)

My review of this week’s episode will drop tomorrow.

Saved By The Bell (Tubi)

My review of this weeks episode will drop later tonight.

Watched and Reviewed:

Late Night Retro Television Review: Hunter 1.10 “The Shooter”

Posted on June 25, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Thursdays, I will be reviewing Hunter, which aired on NBC from 1984 to 1991. The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi and several other services!

This week, Hunter and a biker compete to see who has the fastest draw.

Episode 1.10 “The Shooter”

(Dir by Michael Lange, originally aired on January 4th, 1985)

Someone is gunning down motorcycle cops. It’s a crime that both Hunter and McCall take personally. Unfortunately, Bernie Terwiliger is in charge of the investigation and he insists that he doesn’t need any help from Hunter or “the brass cupcake.” Considering that McCall’s husband was a police officer who was killed while doing a routine traffic stop, you would think Terwiliger would be a little bit more sensitive but nope. That’s not the way things are done on Hunter.

Hunter and McCall conduct their own investigation, which leads them a country-western bar and a quick-draw video game. Deke Broder (Robert Dryer) is a redneck who is very proud of having the fastest draw on the game. The only problem is that cops keep coming in the bar and beating his time. So, Deke stalks and kills them.

Deke — it’s just a game!

Soon, Hunter is playing the video game and Deke has a new target.

Now, this is a good episode! It’s everything that you could want from an episode of Hunter. It’s violent. It’s fast-paced. It’s got enough atmosphere to hold the viewer’s interest and it features a bad guy who is more interesting than the run-of-the-mill cop show villain. Deke and Hunter have a lot in common. They’re both cocky. They’re both convinced their the best. And they both really like to shoot their guns. Between the motorcycles and Deke’s leather kill suit, this episode was pure style.

This is exactly what an episode of Hunter should be like.

Lisa Marie’s Week In Television: 6/14/26 — 6/20/26

Posted on June 20, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Buskers (PBS)

This documentary was about …. well, it’s right there in the title. One man performed card tricks. A woman played a saw like a violin. Another woman wrote poems on a typewriter in the park. A man danced on a subway train. The documentary was an interesting look at a group of unique Americans. Unfortunately, I watched it rather late at night so my eyelids were heavy during the majority of the show.

Degrassi: The Next Generation (Tubi)

My review will drop tomorrow.

Homicide: Life on the Street (Peacock TV)

My review will drop tomorrow.

Kyōryū Sentai Zyuranger (Shout TV)

There’s just no stopping those dinosaurs!

The Larry Sanders Show (HBOMax)

Hank’s Sex Tape! Oh my God, what a cringey episode. When a sex tape featuring Hank Kingsley starts to circulate in Hollywood, it threatens Hank’s new job as an orange juice commercial spokesman. Henry Winkler and Norm MacDonald appear as themselves and have a classic conversation about Hank and …. well, you can watch the episode and see for yourself. Why is this episode so funny and so cringey? Hank is played by Jeffrey Tambor. “Wash your mouth out with Hank.” AGCK!

Saved By The Bell (Tubi)

My review of this week’s episode will drop in about 90 minutes.

UFC Freedom 250 (Paramount Plus)

I’ll just go ahead and tick everyone off by admitting that I enjoyed the spectacle and the unique silliness of UFC on the White House lawn. Yes, there were some regrettable moments. If you were annoyed by the comment about a certain former first lady, you had every right to be. It was a stupid thing to yell and unnecessarily divisive. But, at its heart, the event itself was pure Americana. Abraham Lincoln’s favorite sport was wrestling. Teddy Roosevelt loved boxing. Richard Nixon was a bowler. There’s actually a long history of this sort of thing.

Watched and Reviewed:

Late Night Retro Television Review: Hunter 1.9 “High Bleacher Man”

Posted on June 18, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, Hunter gets another bad assignment.

Episode 1.9 “High Bleacher Man”

(Dir by Arnold Laven, originally aired on December 7th, 1984)

Hunter and McCall have finally arrested Elton Gavin (Michael Baselon), a murderous punk who has been causing mayhem all over Los Angeles. Unfortunately, Gavin works out a deal. For immunity, he’ll turn on gangster Nate Demarest (Richard Romanus). With Demarest eager to kill the informant, Hunter finds himself assigned to protect Gavin until Gavin can testify.

The problem, of course, is that Gavin is a sociopath. Hunter doesn’t want to protect Gavin. He doesn’t want Gavin to get immunity. He certainly doesn’t want to see Gavin back out on the streets. When Hunter learns that McCall once investigated Demarest for killing a federal agent, he asks her to reopen the case. If they can get Demarest on that charge, then there won’t be any reason to give Gavin immunity.

Poor Hunter and McCall. They always get the worst assignments. This was pretty much a standard episode of Hunter but the chemistry between Fred Dryer and Stepfanie Kramer was fun to watch. In the middle of all the action and the bullets, Dryer and Kramer were actually a pretty good comedy team. It’s fun to listen to them talk.

As I watched this episode, I suddenly remembered that Hunter’s father was a gangster and therefore, one would think that Hunter would have more contacts in the world of organized crime than he does. Hunter’s mob background is one of those things that the show sometimes seems to forget about.

The other thing that occurred to me as I watched this episode is that, in 1984, John Amos probably had one of the easiest jobs in television. He played Dolan, Hunter and McCall’s captain. As far as I can tell, his role consisted of showing up at the end of each episode and yelling at Hunter for taking unnecessary risks. That was pretty much it. Amos just had to be annoyed for two-minutes every week.

Of course, it didn’t matter how much Dolan got annoyed,

Hunter got results!

Late Night Retro Television Review: Hunter 1.8 “Dead or Alive”

Posted on June 11, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, there’s somebody else shooting criminals in L.A.

Episode 1.8 “Dead or Alive”

(Dir by Guy Magar, originally aired on November 30th, 1984)

Jimmy Joe Walker (Wings Hauser) is a cowboy bounty hunter who wears black and carries a wide array of weapons. He hunts for criminals who are wanted “dead or alive.” He specializes in brining them in dead because …. well, he just like shooting people. Hunter and McCall try to capture the escaped bank robber Panhandle Pete (Jimmie F. Skaggs) before Jimmy Joe puts a bullet in him.

This was a pretty average episode of Hunter, one that was mostly distinguished by the cheerfully unhinged presence of Wings Hauser. With his Southern accent and his country clothes, Hauser largely gives the same performance here that he gave in Vice Squad. The only difference is that he’s playing a bounty hunter and not a pimp here. He still finds time to beat up McCall. I can’t help but notice that McCall is constantly getting either shot or punched on this show. I think the idea is to show that McCall is just as tough as Hunter and I do like the fact that, no matter how serve the injuries, McCall never stops fighting back. That said, it would be nice to see someone else get a black eye for once.

(This is also yet another episode that finds McCall working undercover as a prostitute. She spends the first half of the episode wearing a blue top with feathers attached to the sleeves. I kept expecting someone to mention the feathers but not even Wings Hauser said a word about them. You would expect Wings to be all over that.)

The plot of this one felt a bit silly. A bank robber named Panhandle Pete? Really? I get the feeling that this episode was done in order to protect the show from charges that it glorified the idea of gunning down criminals. We’re supposed to look at Hunter and Jimmy Joe and say, “Hunter shoots a lot of people but at least he doesn’t laugh about it.” This was Hunter’s version of Magnum Force.

Again, this was an average episode but it’s worth watching just for Wings Hauser.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Hunter 1.7 “Pen Pals”

Posted on May 28, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, Hunter goes to jail!

Episode 1.7 “Pen Pals”

(Dir by Larry Stewart, originally aired on November 16th, 1984)

Rick Hunter, murderer!

Well, not quite. It is true that someone used Hunter’s gun to assassinate a drug dealer but, at the time of the shooting, Hunter was helping a woman who came by his apartment and said that her car had broken down. It’s a set up! But, because Hunter threatened to kill the drug dealer earlier and he’s killed around 20 0ther people since the pilot, everyone assumes that he’s guilty. He’s sent to jail for 72 hours. McCall, forced to partner up with the charming but incompetent Detective Glascow (Tim Thomerson), attempts to prove that Hunter was framed. Meanwhile, Hunter befriends one prisoner (Tracey Walter) and is targeted by another (Jack O’Halloran).

There were a few odd things about this episode. First off, why wasn’t Hunter put in protective custody? Everyone in the jail knew that he was a cop. He hadn’t actually been convicted of anything. So, what was he doing in general population?

Secondly, what happened to Hunter’s mob connections? Previous episodes have hinted that Hunter’s father is one of the most powerful gangsters in California. Wouldn’t that give him some sort of protection in prison? Couldn’t the Hunter crime family have asked around and discovered who set Rick Hunter up?

Oh well, no matter. This was a fun episode! Tim Thomerson was wonderfully smarmy as McCall’s new partner. Jack O’Halloran was properly psychotic as the scary prisoner looking to take down Hunter. If any actor was born to be filmed beating up people in a prison cafeteria, it was Fred Dryer.

Luckily, Hunter got out of jail at the end of the episode. Now, he and McCall can get back to falling in love.

Lisa Marie’s Week In Television: 5/17/26 — 5/23/26

Posted on May 23, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Bardo: A Night In The Life (YouTube)

This was a live music program that aired on certain PBS stations. On Friday night, I watched a concert given by Lake Street Drive. Musically, they were very talented but a little mellow for my tastes.

Burning Love (Prime)

I bought all three seasons of Burning Love this week. On Wednesday, I watched the first season. Ken Marino was Mark Orlando, a fireman looking for love on a reality dating show. “Will you accept my hose?” “Please put your hose in my hands.” I laughed and laughed. If nothing else, it made up for not having a new season of The Bachelorette.

The Cult Behind The Killer: The Andrea Yates Story (Hulu)

I watched this documentary on Wednesday and Thursday. Over three episode, it revisited the horrific crimes of Andrea Yates and suggested that she was brainwashed by a street preacher. It didn’t really convince me. Obviously, Yates claimed that she was driven to murder by her beliefs but I think that, even if she had never heard a sermon in her life, she would have eventually become a murderer. Some people are just evil and will use whatever they can as a justification.

This documentary featured interviews with two people who were former members of the preacher’s cult. Former cult members always make for terrible witnesses because it’s hard to have much respect for anyone who could get brainwashed in the first place.

Dr. Phil (YouTube)

I watched an episode on Saturday about fighting in-laws. They should have just called off the wedding.

Election Coverage (Tuesday)

As someone who pretends not to follow politics, I made sure to pretend that I wasn’t glued to Tuesday’s election coverage. I did a little cheering, I’ll admit it.

Family Lockup (Disney+)

I watched the first episode of this true crime show on Wednesday. The father of a prisoner spent 72 hours in jail so he could talk to his son and see what it was like to be on the inside. At the end of the episode, the son was released and his father was waiting for him. Awww!

George Gently (YouTube)

I watched an episode of this British detective show on Tuesday. It was depressing, as most British detective shows tend to be.

Good Times (Tubi)

In this 70s sitcom, the Evans family was divided over who to support in the next election, Alderman Fred C. Davis or Jimmy Pearson, who was well-educated but refused to play the dozens. Jeff and I watched this episode on Sunday night. Jimmy lost his election but swore that he would run again and this time, he would play the dozens. Good for you, Jimmy. Get out there and sell out.

Hollywood Demons (HBOMax)

This week’s episode took a look at 16 and Pregnant. I guess it’s good that this episode exists because, in the future, historians will probably try to deny that 16 and Pregnant ever existed.

Homicide: Life On The Street (Peacock TV)

My review of this week’s episode will drop tomorrow.

Hulk Hogan: Real American (Netflix)

I watched this docudrama on Thursday. It told the story of Hulk Hogan, from his early days to his death. The weird thing about this documentary was that it acknowledged that wrestling was fake but still tried to pretend like it wasn’t. (I have to admit that I’ve never been a big wrestling fan.) The documentary featured extensive interviews with sickly looking Hogan. He passed away shortly after filming wrapped. Hulk Hogan took down Gawker and he’ll always be remembered for that.

Kyōryū Sentai Zyuranger (Shout Factory TV)

I watched two episodes of this weird Japanese series on Saturday morning. Monsters were everywhere but luckily, so were some people who were apparently descended from dinosaurs. I really couldn’t follow the plot but the saber-tooth tiger was cute.

The PGA Championship (Sunday, CBS)

Congratulation to Aaron Rai! I loved looking at the golf course. It looked so relaxing.

Saved By The Bell (Tubi)

My review of this week’s episode will drop in about 90 minutes.

Watched and Reviewed:

Late Night Retro Television Review: Hunter 1.6 “Flight of the Dead Pigeon”

Posted on May 21, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, Hunter searches for a pigeon.

Episode 1.6 “Flight of the Dead Pigeon”

(Dir by Michael Preece, originally aired on November 9th, 1984)

When a little girl (Marissa Mendenhall) shows up at the police station and asks for Hunter’s help in finding her stolen carrier pigeons, Hunter’s like, “Buzz off, kid!” However, when it turns out that the girl’s uncle was a degenerate gambler and that he was thrown off the roof of a building by the mob, Hunter and McCall get involved. It turns out that the Mexican cartels want to use the pigeons to carry drugs into America. Because the little girl is the only one who knows how to train the pigeons, they want to kidnap her as well….

Yeah, this was a pretty dumb episode. I don’t doubt that pigeons could be used to smuggle drugs but I do doubt that any successful criminal organization would go through all the trouble that they go to in this episode. There are far simpler ways to smuggle drugs. I’m also sure they could have found someone to train the pigeons without abducting a child. Hunter and McCall are able to rescue the girl and the episode ends with her smiling cheerfully as she’s sent into foster care.

“Hunter,” McCall asks, “have you ever wanted kids?”

“Nope,” Hunter replies.

“Me neither,” McCall says, not sounding particularly convincing.

What a sad ending! Seriously, if Hunter and McCall aren’t married by the end of this series, I will throw a fit. They’re totally meant for each other. Even in a kind of dumb episode like this one, their chemistry saves the day.

Lisa Marie’s Week In Television: 5/10/26 — 5/16/26

Posted on May 16, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Hollywood Demons (HBOMax)

This week’s episode took a look at prescription drug abuse in Hollywood. It really didn’t have anything new to say about the subject.

Kyōryū Sentai Zyuranger (Shout TV)

I watched three more episodes of this odd series on Friday night. The monsters were even more trippy than usual!

The N.Y. Friars Club Roast of Chevy Chase (YouTube)

On Sunday, I watched this infamous roast from 2003. Chevy Chase was roasted by a few people who knew him and by a lot of people who didn’t. Stephen Colbert made an early name for himself with his no-holds barred set. I knew this is something that we’re not supposed to admit nowadays but, as I watched the roast, I actually found myself feeling a little sorry for Chase. It’s one thing to be insulted by your friends. It’s another thing to be insulted by strangers who genuinely seem to despise you. At least Paul Shaffer appeared to be having fun as Chevy’s roast master.

Ronda Rousey vs. Gina Carano (Netflix)

17 seconds? After all the hype, it’s impossible not to be disappointed with the actual fight. That said, I’ve always felt that Gina Carano was not treated fairly by Disney so I’m glad she appears to be making a comeback of sorts.

Saved By The Bell (Tubi)

My review of Saved By The Bell will be dropping soon, assuming I don’t fall asleep before I can write it.

Watched and Reviewed:

Late Night Retro Television Review: Hunter 1.5 “Legacy”

Posted on May 14, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, Hunter and McCall investigate a mob hit!

Episode 1.5 “Legacy”

(Dir by Ron Satlof, originally aired on November 2nd, 1984)

Gangster John Vincent (Tony Girogio) has been gunned down in his own mansion. Detective Bernie Terwilliger thinks that it’s a case of burglary gone wrong. Rick Hunter thinks that it was a mob hit and that one of John’s sons is responsible. He and McCall search for Sandy Newton (Mary-Margaret Humes), the woman who was with Michael Vincent (Vincent Baggetta) the night that his father was killed.

I have to admit that I had totally forgotten that Rick Hunter was supposed to be the son of a mobster. This episode featured Rick associating with his childhood buddies and, if nothing else, it showed just how unconvincing Fred Dryer was as the scion of a mob family. Don’t get me wrong. Fred Dryer was great when he was gunning down a suspect and then saying, “Works for me.” And Fred Dryer had a fun chemistry with Stepfanie Kramer. But there was absolutely nothing about Fred Dryer that, in any way, said, “Mobster.” Surrounding Dryer with a bunch of tough-looking Italian-American character actors did nothing to change the fact that Dryer essentially looked like a former football player from sunny California.

This episode had a predictable story but it also had two good action scenes: a fight on a pier and a mob hit in a warehouse. It also introduced John Amos as Captain Dolan, who is the new police captain but who appears to dislike Hunter and McCall just as much as the previous captain. It’s hard not to feel that Amos will be entertaining as he yells at Hunter for not following regulations and costing the city money.

We’ll see how it goes!